Why Is it so Hard to De-Clutter?

I go in fits and spurts. I go through phases where I hang on to everything, grocery receipts, church bulletins, junk mail, empty tooth paste tubes, empty lotion bottles, tiny slivers of soap, socks with holes, dead batteries, (maybe they'll come back to life?), plastic bags, old jewelry, old perfume bottles, empty cleaning supplies, jelly jars, a plethora of house hold stuff. I'll accumulate until I'm bursting at the seams. Then as the clutter overtakes my house, so it overtakes my mind to the point where I feel messy, dirty, not organized, I can't think straight. When my urge to purge hits me, there's no stopping me until I throw everything out, or at least put it in its place. Generally, I like being neat. But for some reason I do have a problem accumulating books, notebooks, papers, journals, drawing journals and sketch pads, newspapers, magazines, buckets of drawing utensils, etc. There's no way I want to throw that stuff out. I want to have it near me so I can refer to it at any time. Those things are my comfort and my friends. Still, I need a bigger house for all this stuff. What's really the problem in not throwing out the household items? Fear of no income, fear of job loss, fear that I won't be able to buy more of these tiems so I hoard the empties hoping to salvage whatever is left. I have cut open toothpaste tubes and scraped my toothbrush on the inside, just to get the last tiny bit of paste. Is my extreme hoarding a result of the bad economy? I'm not so sure. I think I've been this way for a long time. But then I get a paycheck and voila! I can go out and buy what I need. When I come home I go into a cleaning fit and throw out all the empties. Then store them all up, until the cycle needs to start again.